The Lies They Sell: An Exploration of Exploitation in Fast Fashion

For so long in my life, I was a king in a phony castle. I stared at a twenty-dollar bill in my hand with no real understanding of what it meant. To my adolescent self, it meant toys, candy, and most importantly for myself growing up: clothes. I would venture through seas of clothing and piles of polyester being consumed with immeasurable amounts of joy. Here is the process of change. In its place, I now only feel disgust. Why was the kingdom so important to me? And why was my textile empire built on the backs of the rest of the world?

Since the overnight success of the clothing brand Zara in the late 1990s, the clothing industry has evolved in an alarming fashion. Zara rose to prominence because of its new revolutionary business model, Fast Fashion. Fast Fashion—the production of inexpensive clothing produced rapidly by mass-market retailers in response to the latest trends— was marketed as a revolutionary change in the supply chain. When Fast Fashion was first introduced, most of America embraced it as a win-win scenario. By outsourcing labor, companies could produce far cheaper products and, consequently make clothing far more affordable for the average American. So why was I particularly distraught when I discovered the inner clockwork of the Fast Fashion industry? Because I was sold a lie and I ate it up.  

I remember very fondly the feeling of being in an H&M as an adolescent with about twenty dollars in my pocket and the feeling of a king. As I loaded up a cart full of inexpensive clothing, excited to show off my brand new jeans in school on Monday, I had no idea just how much I was really paying for that pair of pants. Because we see the price tag and nothing else matters. This is a narrative that large fashion retailers have been pushing since the inception of Fast Fashion; that they deliver clothing to you at the cheapest price possible and that is all that should matter. But as Lucy Siegle, an environmental journalist for The Guardian, points out “Fast Fashion isn’t cheap. Someone, somewhere is paying”.

The normalization and proliferation of the Fast Fashion industry in the United States is a particularly pressing issue because Fast Fashion itself is built on a variety of environmental, human rights, and labor abuses, in order to satisfy these massive conglomerates’ bottom line. Fast Fashion is at the center of an intricate web of offenses. 

The reason that Fast Fashion is able to minimize cost is due to their extremely unethical outsourcing practices. They make agreements with pseudo-slavery sweatshops in countries thousands of miles away from the labor protections they would usually have to enforce if dealing in the United States. In 2019, Fashion checkers independently audited large Fast Fashion brands and discovered that 93% were not paying their workers a living wage.  A living wage is a far lower standard than the American minimum wage. By contrast, Amancio Ortega, the owner of Zara and the richest man in Spain, is valued at seventy billion dollars. It is a textbook case of labor exploitation with a twist, Fast Fashion industries also exploit the earth. 

While the human rights violations that come along with Fast Fashion are often very apparent, there is a surprisingly less amount of discussion about the catastrophic environmental consequences of Fast Fashion. The issue is that the entire supply chain poses issues to a healthy environment. Fast Fashion textiles are mostly made with cheaper synthetic materials such as polyester, acrylic, and nylon. The production of these cost-cutting materials requires large amounts of fossil fuels and non-renewable resources. Furthermore, the synthetic nature of these fibers decomposes differently than wool and cotton, forming microplastics (tiny non-biodegradable fragments) that are harmful to our oceans and marine life. 

Environmental abuses have been an essential byproduct of Fast Fashion since its creation. The nature of Fast Fashion has led to an increase in production and waste. Today over 80 billion garments are produced each year, which is 400% more than just twenty years ago. Most of those new textiles are not biodegradable and are worn only six times on average before being tossed. The average United States citizen generates 77 pounds(35kg) of clothing waste every year. Without a dramatic change in our business practices, Fast Fashion will bring the earth to ruin.

As I wade deeper into the vast ocean of human and environmental abuses, I take pause. I renounced my claim to the textile throne, so distraught by its consequences, but I, unlike most of the kingdom, had the means to do so. Only the comfortable can soak their hands clean of filth. But even this argument is corrosive to the conversation because the consumers of Fast Fashion have no filth on their hands. They are not at fault. When the eventuality comes that corporations are forced to reflect on their abuses, they will blame the consumer. This is a trend mirrored throughout history. The “Carbon Footprint” was the brainchild of The British Petroleum Company and was created by an advertising agency to shift environmental responsibility onto the consumer. Similarly, the Zara’s and the H&M’s of the world are far more at fault than the Americans who simply rely on their clothing. But the blame game is unproductive because the perpetrators only care for their bottom line. The harsh reality is that change will never come from them. So I implore you to reject your polyester crown, even if it is difficult, and start considering the question: what can be done? Because our world will burn long before the accountable parties stand trial.